MIAMI — Massage therapists known as “The Squeeze Ladies” continue to do incisional drainage massages, a procedure that cost the business founder her license in May, a woman who underwent Brazillian butt-lift surgery told the Miami Herald.
Yazna Corao, a South Miami-Dade licensed massage therapist until March 16, agreed to a revocation of her license after the Florida Department of Health saw videos she posted to Instagram that showed her doing incisional drainage massages that pushed blood and fluids through surgical wounds.
Those massages can be done only by doctors and registered nurses. Licensed massage therapists are allowed to do lymphatic drainage massages
A 2017 state Board of Massage ruling said “manual lymphatic drainage alleviates the swelling and bruising that occur after surgery,” and “the definition of massage does not include exuding fluids from open wounds.”
Because they can soothe patients after surgery, lymphatic drainage massages are popular among butt-lift patients. A Minnesota woman who asked the Miami Herald to use only her initials “A.P,” said she came to Miami for the Brazilian butt-lift surgery May 2.
She said people in her surgery Facebook group had used The Squeeze Ladies so she thought “since others were doing it, maybe I should, too. Since it’s my first bbl surgery, maybe it would help me heal faster.”
But A.P. said in an email that her two massages “were painful cause they re-opened my holes to push out fluids.”
A.P. said the masseuse who showed up at the Travelodge Hotel in Florida City “poked or possibly clipped stitches,” something the Department of Health’s administrative complaint noted Corao did. The department also noted Corao did these massages in “an unauthorized environment.”
“I heard a noise, felt a slight poke,” A.P. wrote in an email. “She pushed pretty hard all down my back to the hole that was opened above my butt. I could feel it gush out each time. ... There was blood everywhere.”
She said the masseuse then put the padding “into my garbage at the hotel.”
A message from the Miami Herald to the massage therapists’ voice mail wasn’t returned. A phone call to a second number given on that voice mail was answered by a woman who insisted The Squeeze Ladies did only lymphatic drainage massage and requesting all questions be emailed. Those email questions have not been answered.
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